AMD Radeon HD 6800 series might launch in 2011?

A Polish tech site PCLab claims an AMD employee leaked information about the launch dates of upcoming Radeon HD 6000 series graphics cards. The site claims the Radeon HD 6000 series will be more than a minor refresh, and that the card will be more power efficient and be faster clock-for-clock than the current generation.

AMD will reportedly first release entry-level and mainstream Radeon HD 6000 graphics cards sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, but where it gets a little bit weird is that the dual-GPU Radeon HD 6970 will allegedly arrive first by Christmas 2010, with the Radeon HD 6800 cards to follow in early 2011.

Widespread rumours suggest that the first release is indeed a mainstream card - the Radeon HD 6700 series - on October 13th 2010. However, the schedules of the other HD 6800 and HD 6970 come as a surprise, especially the dual-GPU HD 6970 releasing before the HD 6800 series. Of course, the HD 6970 being a dual-GPU HD 6770 is also a possibility. The other cards in the family - HD 6500/6600/etc., are not mentioned explicitly, though it is implied they might release before the HD 6800 series.